A Reflection on being in the “Hope Business”

What happened to those CEO’s & leaders who used to voluntarily lower their salary and concede the income inequity?

This is the question that comes to mind when we first hear the story of Jerry Brown. Former Governor of California, Jerry Brown is a wonderful example we should wish for other CEO’s and Leaders to follow…He is in the same tradition as Pope Francis, a man who eschewed the trappings of power that existed at the Vatican until Francis came to town.

When Jerry Brown was Governor of California, he famously didn’t live in the Governor’s Mansion and walked to work each day. He was trained in the Jesuit tradition, as was Senator Tim Kaine and the afore-mentioned Pope Francis.

The puzzling aspect of this interview came when Gov Brown was asked to identify the problems of our time, Jerry Brown immediately focused correctly on the Climate Change Transitions we need to make and the Income Inequality we see all around us. But when asked if there was anyone who merited a nod from him that he saw as a potential standout in leadership? He said, “I’m not in the “HOPE” business!?

This is odd from a Jesuit trained human. Because, presumably, it is Christ’s teachings that permeate this training period. Christ, if nothing else, was about hope & change. That is…not the political slogan-but instead, the human understanding.

He understood we are flawed individuals and that our lives are always going to be about change. But if we cannot think and grow and change and become better versions of ourselves, there is no point to anything. We must live with the understanding that we will leave the world in a better place.

Christ worked every day of his ministry in spreading a gospel of hope. He was realistic enough to see human flaws and failings. And in the end, that is why he was killed! However, he spent his time working to understand other people, in helping those in need, and generally in training his twelve disciples to go out and spread the word of God to continue his work. He was about the future.

The bottom line is this. We should all be in the ‘hope’ business. I have often pointed out that Americans wouldn’t be Americans if we were not “Cock-eyed Optimists.’ I doubt we could have prevailed in World War II were we not in the hope business. And if we didn’t have hope for change, we would have lost the Cold War to the dark and troubled vision of humanity we still see spreading in the former Soviet Union. And in the end, if you do have a propensity leaning towards a Christian understanding of a world view, you are going to be ‘in the hope business!”